


The Disappearance of Walter Caine

by Paulpercopolis



Category: Original Work
Genre: Aliens, Gen, Investigation, Occult, Original work - Freeform, college kids with too much spare time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 22:16:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20235259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paulpercopolis/pseuds/Paulpercopolis





	The Disappearance of Walter Caine

The kettle on the gas stove rumbled and steamed as the AM radio in the corner gave off it's dull hum. Today was shaping up to be a regular Thursday in the local studio. My old ceramic mug filled with mediocre green tea and second-hand garfield phone both at the ready I was prepared to start the usual broadcast.  
"Hello once again, Sunset Springs and surrounding towns. You're listening to 85.4 during the live paranormal hour. The time of the week where we take calls from listeners like you about your closest encounters… with the third kind." It was just a hobby that I did between the other shows my friends ran out of the studio. Always interesting to hear what the callers thought they saw in the woods or what they think lives in their walls. A few of the calls had strange consistencies, but I usually chalked that up to being the show influencing people's imagination while they roved through the forest getting chased by werewolves or vampires.  
After a few minutes of idle chatter from yours truly the phone finally rang, perfectly timed with a distant flash. Probably lightning since it's the middle of our rainy season. I picked it up, my eyes meeting with the plastic cat's for a moment as I cleared my throat.  
"You're live on Sunset Springs Paranormal, what's your story?" I tapped my pen on the little composition notebook I used to record the stories on. We were a small station, broadcast maxing out to about Claytown city limits and we only had enough tape to record the occasional celebrity guest. The music was usually cassette.  
A man's voice responded, clearly out of breath and on the verge of panic. "Uhh… Mcdonalds, Sears, Circuit Ci-" I quickly took him off the broadcast before he could continue getting us in trouble with our current sponsors.  
"Sunset Springs Radio is not affiliated with any of the aforementioned brands and will return after this short break." I switched my microphone off and started playing the nearest record, which happened to be a relaxing piano concert. "Dude, what the fuck is your problem?"  
"I needed to speak to you alone. I've finally cracked the code, found the truth. I figured it all out once and for all!" He sounded like someone who just finished off a 5k while downing enough espresso shots to kill an average sized horse. This should be good.  
"Do tell."  
"It's an ugly truth, but it's one that you need to hear because if word gets out that we know about this we're BOTH getting in trouble so let's keep this between you, me, and the wiretaps."  
"I'm listening." He paused for a moment to catch his breath.  
"Aliens are real, full stop. They don't seem to have arms but they have really potent psychic powers like making things float or conjuring fire. They speak in a way I can understand but can't replicate with my human people mouth. They've been collecting things out in my field because every two years on this night I see them pull something out with this weird beam that comes from their ship. It started out with smaller things like moles, wild rats, but now they've moved on to bigger animals. They even took Mozzarella."  
"You gave cheese to the aliens?"  
"Wh- Oh, no Mozzarella was my cat."  
"Okay. Now why do you believe this is happening?"  
"They need to collect specimens for studying. They're foreign to this planet so they need to find out what things are before they land. Else they risk spreading exotic extraterrestrial diseases that could wipe us off the map. They're scientists, you see. Just like us."  
Whatever this man was talking about he wholeheartedly believed it. It was amazing to listen to him talk about it with such passionate certainty. Just as he was about to keep talking I could hear a low, distant hum. It sounded like construction but the audio quality wasn't that great considering the circumstances of being talked over and going through an old garfield touch-tone.  
"Wait, don't hang up let me get the big cord." I heard him fumble clumsily with his phone, cutting in and out. "You've been a lot more understanding than the last few people I called about this. That's good for someone who's trying to be a P.I.."  
"Wait. Have we met? How did you know I was going to law school?"  
"I know lots of things I shouldn't. Like how I got this number despite having never heard your little campus radio show, I don't think the signal would reach all the way to Belleville anyway."  
Okay, either this guy's onto something or I'm getting pranked big-time.  
"That shithole like two hours north of here? No, it wouldn't. Who are you exactly?"  
For a solid minute all I could hear was the rustling of someone running through tall grasses, the strange construction hum growing closer and closer. After that short pause I heard him speak again, a sudden urgency in his voice.  
"My name is Walter Caine. With you as my witness, Lydia I was right about everything." Nervous, I couldn't help but close the blinds, although there was nobody outside, I felt as if I was being watched. "It's better to be laughed at than wrong, but by god I will find the truth. I WILL find out what's going on here. AND WI-"

Silence again. But this time I knew it wouldn't let up. I polished up my notes and put the phone back on the hook. Taking the needle off the record and switching my mic back on.  
"Terribly sorry for the interruption. We still have time for a few more calls tonight before I've gotta surrender your lovely ears to the Delilah show so let's hear those stories."  
It was a normal Wednesday night after that incident, but I couldn't help but wonder if Walter had something. James's folks were from Belleville so its possible he hired an actor to mess with me. But that doesn't really seem like something he'd do. At least not without someone pressuring him into it.  
The more I tried to rationalize it the less sense it seemed to make, nobody at this college really pulled these kinds of pranks, much less on the deadpan wierdo in the radio club. 

Two days passed without much incident, I didn't have any classes to worry about today so I thought I'd tag along and research the situation. After all, if I was wrong the worst that could happen is I sat for two hours in the bed of James's shitty old toyota for no reason. He dropped me off at the town's public library, always a good place to start if you want to research local kooks.  
When I entered it seemed almost deserted aside from some scattered scuffs and scratch marks it seemed as if the place was both old and new at the same time. Bookshelves from the mid 60s held musty old records and cheap novellas. The girl at the desk was obviously bored out of her mind, more focused on playing computer games than all the nothing that was going on. As soon as I went past the door the music dulled down and she turned to me, giving a small wave before going back to dungeon crawling.  
"Give me a sec, these werewolves are being difficult."  
"Take all the time you want, I'm not in a rush."  
"Enda's in the back room if you need to get in the archives." She gestured to a foggy glass door behind her.  
I gave her a nod and proceeded back into a dimly lit room, reeking of old newsprint. Inside was a taller woman with a long, black ponytail. She was pressing today's papers between two sheets of glass with a half-finished crossword puzzle on the desk next to her.  
"We don't get visitors here too often. What brings you to the archives?" She spoke in a deep, somewhat croaky voice expected of someone much older than she looked.  
"I'm looking for any info you have on one of the locals, what do you know about Walter Caine?"  
Her hands froze in the middle of turning the vice grip and she gave me a knowing look before asking "What'd he do this time?".  
"I'd rather not say without knowing."  
She stopped what she was doing and started sifting through laminated articles from about a decade ago and pulled out a small snippet that read. "Local homesteader pardoned by building home outside city limits."  
"Wally built his cabin on top of that hill after spending a good year or so preventing landslides. Now he doesn't pay property taxes because the city doesn't know exactly who owns his house."  
"I don't think that's how districts work."  
"Well if you know, please run for office. Mayor Wesly doesn't know what he's doing and is like… absolutely going to cry during his next speech. He got close during the last meeting."  
"Did they know each other?"  
"No, Wesly's just a spineless little man and Walter is… Somewhat unsettling in person."  
She took the page from my hand and turned it around, pointing to a little picture of a lithe, angular-looking man in a three-piece suit posing in front of a humble, but strong looking cabin. He looked a little bit like the acting coach from campus without the sleepless eyes and caffeine addiction.  
"Nothing seems that weird about him."  
"Take a closer look." I squinted at the photo, but no other details jumped out for me.  
She took a moment to look away from her work to look directly at me. I could barely see her eyes behind the amber tint of her horn-rimmed glasses. "He's too normal. Too clean. He sticks out like a sore thumb in this town."  
"Is that something to be alarmed by?"  
"If you've ever been to someone's house, you always see their mess. All their little eccentricities and quirks are on display for you." She gestured over to her workspace which was messy, but organized. There were a few posters for old movies on the wall as well as assorted news clippings.  
"I see…" I said like someone who didn't quite see yet.  
"Walter is… too clean. His suit never gets dirty, you never see him and anything else. I got invited to his house and it was SPOTLESS. Nobody has a house that clean unless they're hiding something."  
It was an interesting way of thinking, but it made sense. Like all the nerd stuff I keep under my bed when I have company. There's always a big spot in the middle of my desk where my old tandy computer goes. It's a lot easier to hide than it is to resist going on a 30 minute tangent on the history of home computing when someone asks why I need three computers and a whole drawer dedicated to old floppy discs.  
"I think I get you."  
She gave me a quick smile before returning to her work. "If you need more info, talk to the mayor's assistants. They're a lot more personally familiar with him. And tell Naomi to use the silver sword, she's been stuck in that dungeon for like half an hour."  
I gave her a nod and walked out, heading over to the novels and picking out one with an interesting title. Naomi wheeled her office chair over to the other computer and started typing.  
"Is that all for you?" She took my library card and hovered it over the scanner.  
"Yep. Also werewolves are weak to silver. It's a moon thing, you know."  
She flushed a little awkwardly while she handed me a strip of thermal paper with the book's due date. "I… of course I knew that! I was just… challenging myself." She wheeled herself over and after a fair bit of equipment shuffling sounds the computer whimpered like a sad dog. "Hm."  
I gathered my things and started heading down the town's main road, looking for the oldest and most important looking building which almost invariably gets remodeled into the city hall. Of course, none of the buildings looked old at all. Maybe three or four years at most but there was an off-white building with old Spanish colony style walls that were made of cheap plaster over a brick and mortar building, evident by the baseball-sized chips from either recent vandals or that hailstorm that happened about a year ago.

Inside wasn't very impressive either, it consisted of three cashiers behind a wall of glass taking people's utility checks while a well-dressed brick wall of a man in the back of the room sat high enough to supervise on a desk just big enough to cement that he was the most important person in the room.  
I walked up to the desk, it was on a bit of a platform so I had to stand up really straight to get my nose over the top.  
"Mayor Wesley, I presume?"  
He let out a hefty sigh and pushed an official-looking nameplate to the edge of the desk that read "Adam Addams, utilities admin." The unfortunate name was not lost on me, but it seemed like this guy was having a tough day so I didn't bring it up.  
"Why don't you come back here? I'm starting to get a crick in my neck from looking down all day."  
He gestured to my left where there was a staircase leading up to a platform where he sat in his high-backed executive chair. His stature was actually slightly below average despite the tall desk.  
"Sorry about my arrangements, it's just a lot easier to see what people are doing from this angle."  
"Why not install a window? The ceiling is high enough for it."  
"Oddly enough, the estimate on the tall desk was cheaper. No permits or engineers needed for it. But I digress, why are you here?"  
I took out my pen and paper and he shot me a strange look. "Don't worry, It just so I remember things better. I'm working on some theories. What do you know about Walter Caine?"  
"Lanky fellow, lives in the shack outside town?"  
"He seemed average at most in the pictures."  
"Yeah, he's been weird lately. I'm usually the one who checks his meter since my guys get too freaked out by him." This guy seemed oddly calm, answering my questions a bit too freely.  
"I've heard he was a bit of an eccentric type, care to expand on why people would think so?"  
"I mean, he hardly ever left his house except for his weekly shopping trips. Never paid bills because he lived close enough to the river to set up a decently big waterwheel. We had to put in one of those fancy-shmancy meters that runs backwards." He paused for a moment, scratching his blocky, stubble-coated chin. "He might not be the brightest homesteader since he can only get a few dollars each period out of that industrial size wheel. Way too much torque for that little generator."  
"Have you ever gone inside his house?"  
He drummed his fingers on his oversized desk, letting the taps reverberate back at us through the makeshift echo chamber below.  
"Uhh… No but from what I see through the window he doesn't have much. Basically a little cottage. I think he sleeps in his reading lounger. He's got some funky statues on his shelf too. Might just be modern art but one of them looked like it moved somehow." He caught himself and stopped. "Oh, listen to me ramble on. Guess the old birds at the café aren't the only ones who like to gossip, huh?"  
"You wouldn't happen to know if he believed in aliens, did you?"  
His somewhat jolly expression he wore just a moment ago turned to one of unshakable discomfort. "I… uh… Nobody had the heart to tell him about Mozzarella. He just loved that cat so dearly and to have her just run off one day. S'gotta hurt, you know?"  
I nodded slowly, deciding it'd be best to keep the alien theory under wraps until I have more concrete evidence than a phone call I didn't record. "Would you mind telling me where his house is? I'd like to meet him in person."  
"Town's only got one hill and one river. You'll find his place right between the two, halfway up the hill. Just past the treeline."  
I nodded one last time and held out my hand for a handshake, which he returned with a curt, but professional shake and squeeze. "My name's Lydia, by the way. I'm from Sunset Springs."  
His eyes lit up with surprise. "Oh, from the radio show? I thought you sounded like someone familiar. Big fan."  
"Oh! uh… Thanks." I was just leaving and I'm not really used to meeting fans out in the wild so I naturally did exactly what my lizard brain instincts told me to.  
Slink away and start running to my next destination as soon as I get past the door. A few people turned their heads as I zipped past them into the now setting sun, towards where the treeline seemed just a little higher than it should be in this area. Pine trees wrapped around the city in a horseshoe while the river flowed south, then east, past the sunset spring that gave my hometown it's name. Sidewalks turned to roadsides, roadsides into loose dirt paths, dirt paths into a serene walkway cut through the low lying sandhill shrubs. Cranes called in the distance, backed by the soft crashing of water against river rocks. Before I knew it my tense stride turned to a peaceful nature walk.  
After a few minutes of following the sound of water, I made my way to a small cabin with a waterwheel. It was a quaint little scene, seeing the wheel turn while the river ebbed and flowed past the white stone riverbank. The cabin was simple, but seemed to have a much deeper foundation than most shacks because the door was a good 3 feet off the ground, compensated by a rusty metal step-ladder. I approached and knocked on the front door. Nothing.  
I tried again, but louder this time. Not even a small stir from inside. Just a faint jingle of something wooden as the knock shook the wall. I turned the knob to the side, it was unlocked. With a little effort I pulled the rain-swollen door from its frame and saw the almost pristine inside of this man's house. It was simple, almost unusually so. All the furnishings he had were a bookshelf, a chair, a nightstand, and an interesting set of masks hung up on the wall. Between the chair and window there was a telescope and sat upon the nightstand was a rather large globe. Not one of the planet, but one of the stars surrounding it, with little red stickers marking points of interest on certain constellations. On its very top just offset by the north star there was a button, and of course I pressed it because I have no self restraint.  
The globe clicked open like a ring box to show a little orrery. A model of our solar system as it slowly turned, the planets dancing eternally around their sun. Only there were more planets than usual and the orrery seemed to only take up a small amount of space in the basketball-sized globe. At first I thought it was to compensate for pluto's incredibly massive orbit but it was actually quite close in this model. The cogs implied something with the capacity to orbit much further away and for even greater periods of time. I followed the rail to a tiny black bead, about the size of the blue and green earth analog. Planet nine maybe? Only ever heard rumors about this among the college space nerds. All I really could osmose from their conversations was that it was super far away most of the time and they knew next to nothing about it. Not even what it's made of or how fast it spins.  
I clicked the globe closed, puzzling on the mysteries of the solar system wouldn't get me any closer to finding out about this Walter guy. I turned around to see the opposite wall, it had an empty picture frame and four masks. I recognized them as old fashioned japanese theatre masks. At least three of them were. Whereas the tengu, noh, and hannya masks had names in my mind, this fourth one didn't ring any bells. It had a big, toothy smile, pale green skin and half-closed eyes that kinda made it look like that one mask from a comic book I saw. It was about six feet off the ground so I had to stand up straight on my toes to reach it, but when I tried to pull it down for a closer look, the ribbon got caught on it's peg, pulling it down like a lever and making the distinct screech of gears and wheels that haven't been oiled or replaced in far too long. A false panel slid away to reveal a simple, metal keypad. Possibly taken off of a digital hotel safe.  
"What would I put in a hidden keypad?" I mused to myself, pressing the one button four times and getting the trademark beep of rejection. Of course that wasn't it but at least I know it's a four digit code.  
The rest of the room seemed pretty barren so I started looking under things, nothing under the globe, nothing under the chair cushion, nothing under the-  
Something severely weird was going on with the rug. It was placed square in the middle of the cabin, no furniture even overlapping a little bit. And trying to peel it back only revealed it was tied tightly to a slot in the floor with some kind of smooth cables. Giving the rug a few good stomps produced a hollow, wobbly sound like one of those metal sheets from the college's sound lab. Always knew learning how to make my own foley was a good idea. After stepping around and paying close attention to the echo of the WUBWUBWUBWUB I managed to get a good idea of what was under there. It sounded a bit like a slope, heading down and away from the mask wall and into the hill outside. Maybe that hill wasn't natural at all and all the erosion control this guy did was just to save face.  
After brewing some more theories I decided to head to the one place I haven't checked thoroughly yet, the bookshelf. I've seen enough movies to know theres always something hidden in the bookshelf, but after slowly tilting forward each of the old hardback volumes I found no such hidden lever. I took a tentative seat on the highback chair and tried to look at the bigger picture. The shelves were in a standard two by two organization, packed densely with encyclopedias and books on the occult and disputed. I squinted my eyes and leaned back a little more.  
There it is! Four of the books happened to be old library books. And what do library books happen to have? Numbers. I took out my notepad and started feverishly scribbling them down.  
A common thread between them was they were all in the early 800s. 801, 808.4, 808.6, and 808.83. All were references on obscure subjects; speeches, compiled firsthand accounts, letters sent between cryptozoologists and other such truthers. Might make good material for the show, actually. People eat that stuff up and once this whole Walter situation was figured out I might be able to publish my story with someone.  
I did the obvious thing from there, trying the outlying numbers in different orders, 1468, 8416, 4186, I don't quite remember which code worked but the comforting monotony was about to wash itself over me when the little light turned green and buzzed, nearly scaring me out of my skin as hidden gears screamed for oil to soothe their rusty teeth and smooth their tattered belts. The rug slipped beneath the floor into a hidden compartment along with the metal panel underneath to reveal not a slope, but a stairwell. In retrospect that's much more practical than having a secret slide. But still just as exciting.  
Using the flashlight on the other end of my pen I took careful steps down, but was quickly rendered useless by some simple, but incredibly effective pressure plates turning on some caged lights further down in the tunnel, headed right to the hollow hill.  
After a short walk I came to what looked like one of those history channel apocalypse bunkers, complete with a deep freezer full of various foods, plenty of amenities, and what looked like a reel-to-reel recorder. It wasn't a model I'd seen before and it was frankly just too big to move around. Probably had to come in piece by piece or have the walls constructed around it. The amount of tape on one of them suggested there was something on it, but the port for the microphone was connected into something else. The cable ran up the wall and up into the ceiling. I took a quick look at the dials, but realized that I wasn't really good enough of a sound engineer to make sense of them so I let it be for now. The two doors in the room were labelled by signs, a bathroom and an elevator. Peeking inside the elevator showed it was more of a person-sized dumbwaiter. Complete with rope-pulley system and slightly inconvenient hole in the floor. In practice it was a little strange to use one while not crammed into a box meant for laundry or fresh cooked meals, but I managed. Up the chute there wasn't very much I could see except a twin sized bed and modest nightstand. The covers were all pulled into a bundle, it seemed like something was under them but it wasn't moving. Even if there was something sleeping there it would at least shift a little to breathe. After pulling the makeshift elevator up into the room, I could see things a lot better. There was one of those mechanical litterboxes and a completely thrashed scratching post around the foot of the bed. A previously black lounge chair covered in white cat fur sat next to a desk with a blank CRT monitor. The terminal's signature green reticle blinking on and off. The monitor had a sticky note with a list of commands, "Open, unfold, seek, monitor, fold, close."  
Before I could postulate any further on what those commands could be for I heard a wild, shrill shriek from behind the blanket pile, as well as a tired, almost whiny robotic voice.  
"Mozzy, calm down. It's just Lydia again."  
A large, white cat with a silly looking overbite stood over the blanketed mass, letting out a few more shrill meows before making a carefully calculated leap to the back of the chair I was standing next to.  
"Again? I don't recall ever being here before." I stated frankly, letting Mozzarella aggressively headbutt my hand so she would stop demanding affection.  
"You said that last go-around too. Can we cut to the chase this time? You wanted to know about the aliens, right?"  
"I mean, not particularly. I wanted to know if you were okay." The pile shifted and I saw the top of a head of neatly cropped black hair poke out one of the ends.  
"So you came to my house instead of calling the police or paramedics or something?"  
"You and I both know this looks shady as hell and you would absolutely get arrested. Or shot. Or both, knowing this country."  
The blanket mass gave a dry laugh that sounded more like a cough and stood up, showing this messy man with a wire sticking outside the side of his mouth.  
"Excuse the extra equipment. They don't like it when people just freely give out their secrets. You can call me Walt." He slept nearly fully clothed, shoes included with his suit coat on a hanger on a small wardrobe's door handle. Somehow this is much weirder than sleeping nude.  
"'They' being?"  
"The aliens, man! They look a little like those pants guys from fresno but a lot less… benign." He gestured wildly as he spoke, but only used one hand to do so since his left was busy operating his electric larynx. I'd seen things like those before, but mostly in the hands of former smokers. I hadn't seen any ashtrays or cigarette butts outside or in the upper cottage so this guy didn't fit the bill.  
"So the aliens took out your larynx?" I asked, but he feverishly shook his head.  
"No, no it's just disabled. For now, at least. It'll probably get the blood back in about a week. Alien toxins are strong stuff."  
I nodded, not entirely following but starting to develop a picture.  
"So why would they do this to you?" Walter got up and stretched, heading over to his cat's hair chair, using Mozzarella as a fuzzy pillow.  
"You're aware of the observer effect, right? How people act different if they're being watched?"  
I gave a small nod as he typed some commands into his console.  
"Tonight should be a good time to open the hatch. Clear skies, new moon, not much light pollution out here." He kept click-clacking on his keyboard, only referencing his sticky note at the very end before sitting up, the whirring of mechanical gears in the ceiling growing so loud I was forced to lip-read what he said next.  
"You can watch the next part, just stay in the top cabin." He then coaxed me into the dumbwaiter, giving Mozzarella a scratch under the chin before heading down with me and back outside. I took a seat in the highback while Walted stepped outside, tripping on the lack of a front staircase. I took a look out the window and to my surprise the hill was opening up, shoving a few bushes to the side and burying a patch of moss as it did so to reveal a large, beautiful telescope and a satellite dish. Both were pointed to the sky as they swayed back and forth in a smooth, mechanical motion before stopping. Downstairs I could hear the echoes of a dot-matrix printer or something similar as well as the gears of the reel-to-reel starting up. The satellite dish stopped in place, seemingly pointed to the same area the telescope was focused on. A single point between two stars, what seemed like a normal pit of darkness in the infinite sky seemed to hold more and more significance.  
I rushed back downstairs to see a long feed of thermal paper pouring out of the machine with the magnetic tapes. Unfurling it at the bottom showed it indeed started with a set of calibration commands and proceeded to gather data of some kind. If it were to be put in a chart it would roughly look like a jagged sine wave. The pattern kept going, increasing in frequency and decreasing in amplitude now and then before going back like it was sending out a coded message or something. But trying to put it into morse only yielded gibberish with no clear linguistic pattern. Mozzarella peeked her head out of a tunnel in the wall to swat at the paper feed as I started to illustrate the waves in my notebook, not machine accurate, but good enough. And as suddenly as it all started the gears and belts roared back to life, the telescope descending back into the hollow hill and closing over with a thin tray of sod. It took the readout a minute or so to catch up, but at the end there was a major peak in activity, adding an extra two digits to the readout. I circled the peak in red ink and tore the paper off, the cat insisting that she bury her claws into the end and tear right through it before bringing it back topside.  
"Hey, you're probably going to want to see this." I called out the window, only to be met with silence as I rolled up the paper and took it outside. Things were as still and serene as when I first arrived, only I found no solace in this. A dull hiss emanated from the ground by the hill, a perfectly circular patch of blackened grass where Walter stood to observe his creation, smelling of burning hair and overloaded circuits filled the air as I felt a droplet of rain fall on my nose. I heard the door swing and slam in the wind, Mozzarella's white fur unmistakable, even in the eerie moonlight as she stood up on two legs and walked like a human in pants that were far too tight. It would have been hilarious if it weren't for the sensory overload of the scene before me.  
She locked eyes with me before trotting over to the burned circle, her forepaws seeming to get lost in her shifting mass of fur. Her brilliant green eyes seemed to grow further apart before she opened her mouth. What came out was garbled and unintelligible, but the intent was clear as she disappeared like a spectre without so much as a hint to where she might be going.  
"Nobody will believe you."  
James's parents were confused to see me at this time of night, but welcoming nonetheless. After all, I didn't exactly have the budget for a motel room and the bus didn't come through here until morning. I didn't really talk to them for the whole night since I basically walked in on their family movie night. I managed to get back to Sunset Springs with the roll of paper in time for my show to start back up again.  
My tea was already done, previous shift probably saw I was going through a bit of a funk so they decided to save me the trouble.  
"Hello once again, Sunset Springs and surrounding towns. You're listening to 85.4 during the live paranormal hour. The time of the week where we take calls from listeners like you about your closest encounters…"  
During the dramatic pause something seemed to click in my mind. I took out my notebook and placed it lightly on the desk so it wouldn't shake the microphone.  
"Well... Normally that's what happens. But I've got a pretty interesting story for you folks tonight. I just cleared it with that mysterious brand saboteur from two days ago, but he told me he couldn't call back due to a nasty throat problem. So I'll be your guest reader tonight. This one's a real treat."


End file.
